Archive for the ‘Belgium’ Category

Watching a documentary about Belgian singer Arno, I discovered he could yodel ! I had to do some research to find the title of the song but I found it.

Arno Hintjens is a belgian singer who began his career in the beginning of the seventies. It is with his first group, Tjens Couter that you can hear him yodel on Honey bee. With his next group TC Matic, he made a kind of rock music mixed with blues and new wave. The group is still a reference in European rock with songs like Putain Putain (an alternative European hymn). Since 1996, he sings mostly solo an has played in different films.

He has a broken voice a bit like Tom Waits and his lyrics are written in dutch, french and english. He is also known for his covers of songs like the very touching Les filles du bord de mer (originally by Adamo).

As you hear the beginning of Honey bee, you wouln’t imagine there is a yodel in the song. It begins like a ballad, and then changes into a reggae beat where Arno tries to yodel. As he does it, you can hear is typical flemish (Ostend) accent.

You can find yodel everywhere, even in kiddie shows ! Puppets do yodel sometimes ! So here is a not so serious post.

My first find is in Sesame Street. It’s not a puppet who yodels but it’s in the show. Y is for yell, yellow and yodel, or how to learn the alphabet to the children. With kids who try to yodel and a really serious yodeler.

Season Three, Episode 51: Gonzo yodels Rimsky-Korsakov while riding on a motorized pogo-stick. Not really the best yodel I’ve heard but a funny one !

Or maybe this one where the Muppets yodel in chorus with Kristy Lee, an American Idol finalist (note to myself: find the yodelers in that kind of contest):

And to end this post, a great one from Kabouter Plop, the Belgian gnome who made it on WFMU with a fake phonetic translation of one of his songs. There’s no clip for the yodel song, you’ll find the mp3 after the clip. For the lyrics in dutch, you can go here. Be warned: it’s eurobeat at its best, with yodel !

As a nice ending for this year’s posts about the Eurovision, let me introduce you to Bobbejaan Schoepen. I’ll talk more about him later (he is a fine Belgian yodeler and has a new album out) but here is a prologue.

Bobbejaan Schoepen represented Belgium in the second edition of the Eurovision in 1957. The rules were completely different at the time: the song had to be in one of the languages of the country and was sung live with an orchestra. No eurotrash or eurobeat at that time ! There’s no yodel in the song but he can whistle so well ! It ended up at the 8th place, out of 10 countries.